I woke up early so I had time to argue with Enterprise Rent-A-Car about my rate, which was $100 more on my contract than on my reservation. Surprisingly, they gave me the lower rate without a hassle, so I saved over $100.
After returning the car, I took a shuttle to the airport, ate some breakfast in the huge airport terminal and flew back to Rochester without delay.
After driving through the Garden of the Gods Park, which has a bunch of weird sandstone formations, I headed to Denver to meet up with my friend, Tom.
It snowed a lot more overnight, which ruined my chances of climbing Mount Elbert. So, I cleaned the three inches of snow off my rental car and drove to Colorado Springs.
Thankfully, it was sunny today, but still cold. I drove for an hour to Leadville. Leadville is a horrible, run-down, boring place. I added it as a stop only because it's right next to Mount Elbert, which I planned to hike this day, but couldn't due to the weather.
I woke up early and it was snowing. I did absolutely nothing the entire day because there really wasn't anything to do because of the weather. It snowed even more later in the day, so I ordered a pizza and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
I was glad to get out of Winter Park because it was boring. The weather was still bad, and I couldn't see any of the scenery as I drove through Winter Park and over Berthoud Pass.
I planned on waking up, climbing Lily Mountain and driving Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park, but instead I decided to drive back to Denver to switch my rental car.
After about two hours worth of delays at JFK due to the remnants of Hurricane Ivan pounding New York with rain, I arrived in Denver much later than expected. Just like on Seinfeld, my rental car reservation didn't actually reserve my full size car, so I had to choose between a Pontiac Sunfire coupe and a Mitsubishi Lancer sedan. I chose the Mitsubish Lancer, which was a poor choice because it is a horrible car with a weak engine.
Hoping to avoid similar hassles as the first night, we decided to get up very early to check out and get to the airport before everyone else. When you can get 8 people to agree to wake at 5:30 a.m., you can pretty much be certain that we all believed the extremely early wake-up call was necessary.
We needed to check out very early the next day, so we all decided to take it easy on this day. Jen, Amanda and I went to the straw market across the street to grab some souvenirs. After that, I ate and then went to the beach.
We headed downtown to catch the ferry to Paradise Island right after we got up. For those of you who've never been to Atlantis, I would mark that on your to-do list because it is one of the coolest places I've ever visited. Of course, it wasn't as exciting this time because I visited in 2001, but it is still the coolest man-made place I've ever seen.
This was Booze & Cruise day. It was "cold" and cloudy in the morning. In fact, I wore jeans and a jacket for the first part of the Booze & Cruise. The sun came out and the skies cleared once the boat made its final pick-up at the Holiday Inn Sunspree on Paradise Island.
This was a recovery day. I think I got out of bed at about 2 p.m. We didn't do much during the day, and at night we just went to the casino. At the casino we just watched some drunk/dumb guy play three hands of Blackjack with $3,500 on each hand. He was actually winning like crazy for a while. His dumbest/luckiest move was doubling down with an ace and a five. Lucky for him, the dealer busted and he made a cool $7,000 on that one hand.
On the beach at the end of the day, a local guy named Ben came up to our group and sold us on an all-you-can drink party for $15 at King & Nights, which is next door to the hotel. My brother and I met Ben three years ago at the same party that he ran, but then he called it Bourbon Street. This party was the best part of the trip in 2001.
After seeing the Casuarinas Hotel in the daylight, I have to admit that it was a neat little crappy place with a lot of character. On the other hand, I was ready to get out of that place and into the "comforts" of your standard tourist-trap hotel. After checking out, the lady working the desk helped us flag a cab and invited us back for dinner some time (yeah right!).
We left Boston for The Bahamas at about 3:00 after staying in Boston at my brother's friend's house. We flew on a Miami Air charter full of Spring Breakers, but the ride was rather normal (no parties on the plane or anything like that).
STRATTON, VT — I was warm and well-rested to start this day because I slept on the couch in the loft. A Cheerios and Red Bull breakfast hit the spot. The skiing, temperature, and weather were almost identical to the day before. A stiff 30-50 mph wind at the summit was the only difference.
STRATTON, VT — After a fitful night of sleeping in a drafty room in the condo, I woke to subzero temperatures in southern Vermont. On the positive side, there were absolutely no clouds in the sky the whole day.
I left for Stratton right after work. The drive took an hour longer than it should've because of some nasty driving conditions near Syracuse, NY. I finally arrived at the condo at around 11:30.